Friday, 19 June 2009

'One Day' gives a great insight into hip-hop culture is, following up and coming rap group Kooley High. The documentary directed by Napoleon Wright for Becauseus Films in association with M.E.C.C.A. Records, is a good look, check it out!

Hey one and all, yesterday I had the most inspired meeting I have had in ages. It was with a gentlemen named Troy Kennedy, who seems to be more like me than me (if thats possible). It was the kind of meeting that when you finished talking you feel like you have known the person for a life time. He introduced me to a lot of ideas and I am going to share two of the best:

1. The Greun Transfer:(TGT) is a show about advertising, how it works, and how it works on us. Hosted by the inimitable Wil Anderson, TGT decodes and defuses the commercial messages that swirl through our lives, with the help of a panel of ad industry experts.

The show is Australian, and has just been picked up by BBC Three, its great so check it out.

2. The Million: which is a integreated campaign with Verizon, Samsung and the New york school board. It just picked a D&AD pencil, again its amazing so check it out, video here.

Monday, 15 June 2009

So I have been indoors most of this evening, on the internet looking for intersting information, taking in a myriad of topics, titles, feeds, links and pics, like most people in my generation. Every now and then you stumble across a true gem.

I should warn you now that this report is not for everyone. In fact, it’s probably not for most people. Instead of writing for the general public, I spent about 35 hours writing these pages for a small minority of people interested in living life on their own terms while making a dramatic, positive difference in the lives of others at the same time. In short, I wrote it for people who are serious about ruling—or at least chang- ing—the world.

Wednesday, 10 June 2009

I haven't heard any music from Pharrel in a while, but here he gives some advice about being an artist, I believe these wise words relate to anything anyone is trying to achieve. Like Iverson said ' I'm not talking about the game, im talking bout practice', check it out

Sunday, 7 June 2009

OK so hopefully you can relate, sometimes I find it challenging to stay creative or just turn it on and off when needed. I decided so scour the web and put together a list of ways to stay creative. Here goes nothing:Some of these tasks include:

1. Find Inner Peace Before Starting Tasks

While I do try to be at peace and free of negative thoughts most of the time, on occasion I can get run down with incessant mind activity. If you can relate to feeling angry, frustrated or stressed at times, then you need to realise that being in this mode is not the best place to come from when you want to work on creative projects.

Instead, I use a number of techniques that help me relax, whether it be meditation, taking in my surroundings or simply focusing on my breathing. Anything that helps me get into a calm mood. From here, with an empty mind, I find it much easier to produce some creative output.2. Be Willing to Explore New Ideas

If you ever get too stuck in a mindset that your way is the only way and you know everything about a topic that you need to know, then you could be missing out on some purely genius information. Even though I might have a good idea of how I think things should be done, I’m always willing to explore new ideas.

If you stay fixed and isolated in one area of your life it can easily cross over into your more creative pursuits. This doesn’t mean you have to accept or agree with everything you see / read, but at least give new perspectives a chance before dismissing them.3. Always Take Notes

Since I started taking a lot of notes in my daily life, I honestly have no idea how I lived without them in the past. Whether you are an artist, a writer, an engineer or anything that allows you to use your imagination at times, be ready to take notes whenever necessary.

I tend to read informative books rather than ones based on fantasy or science fiction, and always keep a small notepad with me to write down some real gems I get from the content. Similarly, if I’m out and about and something comes to mind, I’ll keep notes in my phone and then upload them to Google Docs later in the day.

These simple but useful notes have helped me massively when it comes to the likes of article ideas, design inspiration and more.

4. Outline a Core Structure for All Projects

I’m sure this is a case by case example, but for the life of me I can rarely sit down and work effectively unless, I keep a structure of what I want to stick to and then flesh out ideas from there.

Even for this blog post, on a piece of paper I wrote down the title and my six main points first. Only then did I open up a text editor and start turning the points into paragraphs. Not only does this help you stick to your goals, but I find having a structure first of all can greatly increase efficiency for any project I undertake.

5. Follow Other Creative People

This is by no means in order to steal pieces of their inspiration, but you could see it as stealing some of their workflow. I love seeing how people in my industry plan their work days and I can see certain bloggers’ posts on the topic tend to be some of their most popular.

If there are people you look up to in your niche, see if you can find out how they structure their days, where they get their inspiration from and what makes them ‘tick’. If they’re well known it’s likely someone has done an interview with them and asked them questions like this.

6. Tidy Loose Ends Later

This especially applies to writing, but this tip can be used in many other creative outlets as well. I find that I work the best if I stick to a core structure, but then just let my imagination flow, not worrying about spelling mistakes or slight imperfections in design.

I believe that if you spent all the time you are trying to be creative, also being logical and fixing up mistakes, it not only leads to less inspiring results but it is a much slower process. Let your mind wander, see what you come up with, and tidy the loose ends when you are finished.

Trendwatching recently released an interesting post about Foreverism: Which encompasses the many ways that consumers and businesses are embracing conversations, relationships, and products that are never done. Driving its popularity is technology that allows them to find, follow, interact and collaborate forever with anyone & anything.

Channel 4 have released the results of some youth research they begun in 2006 to build new dialogues with agencies and advertisers and to help shape more effective communication with young people.

The study is a guide to youth culture in the UK, from the street up. The 26 most interesting and influential tribes have been identified and brought to life through the interactive website www.uktribes.com. Users can explore tribal attitudes, motivations, music, fashion and art through video, photography, blogs, young journalists’ commissions and loads more.

Building on the qualitative foundations, we launched an online game to gain an idea of numbers. findyourtribe.co.uk was seeded on tribe specific websites and woven into editorial pieces.